THE City of Harare is working hard to ensure that services that are essential to ratepayers are delivered, Ward 8 Councillor Keith Charumbira has said.
Diana Nherera Suburban Reporter
Speaking at a pre-budget consultative meeting for the ward held at Highlands District Office on Tuesday night, Cllr Charumbira said the city was trying its best and commended residents of the ward who are paying their bills.
The physical meeting was attended by one resident Mr Peter Morris. It could not be established how many other residents followed the proceedings online.
“The appreciation by residents of Ward 8 was shown by way of paying their bills at the district office which is something that I appreciate and do not take for granted because it is the duty of the City of Harare to ensure that we provide services to the citizens.
“So I want to appreciate citizens for that sense of ownership in terms of our community and I would like to appreciate citizens for voluntarily taking part in the cleaning up of our ward in Chisipite, Newlands, Ballantyne Park and Runniville.
“I would like to commend residents’ associations, our MP (Mr Tendai Biti) for taking part in various cleanup campaigns that we have been doing and ensuring that we manage litter well and being patient for living with dry taps, some for years, some for months,” said Cllr Charumbira.
Cllr Charumbira claimed service delivery was well managed in Highlands despite residents having to endure decades without council tap water and a poor refuse collection service.
“In these difficult circumstances, we managed to have various roads being maintained but currently we are focusing on other roads such as Sloane Street. We are to do Glen Clova Avenue, Lavender Close and Grosvenor as a matter of urgency. Something is in place now for us to move on that,” he said.
Cllr Charumbira said the city was having challenges with refuse collection as most of its refuse collection fleet was down.
“Currently we have 16 refuse compactors which are working, three tipper trucks, two frontend loaders and four skip trucks,” he said.
Cllr Charumbira said 11 refuse trucks are supposed to be on the road in two to three weeks’ time to add to the fleet on the road.
He said the city is ensuring refuse is collected as per schedule which is one collection after two or three weeks indicating collections will soon be done more often.
“I want to thank Highlands Residents’ Association, Newlands Residents’ Association and other associations including our business community and individuals who are volunteering financially and intellectually,” said Cllr Charumbira.
He said the city is facing challenges at Morton Jaffray water plant in terms of repairs and other things.
“Various works have been done at our local pumping stations in terms of equal distribution of that precious liquid in the ward.
“We advocated for water in council and agreed as a resolution that we are supposed to ration the precious liquid that is available. I am expecting residents of Ward 8 to receive water at least two days a week according to the current production.
“And as the production increases, we will also increase supply in Ward 8 and we will ensure that we are beneficiaries of that precious liquid and all services by our local authority,” said Cllr Charumbira.
He urged residents to inform council through the ward’s WhatsApp platforms or at Highlands District Office if they have water challenges so that council engineers can attend to the problems.
Cllr Charumbira touched on the illegal activities at shopping centres and road intersections in the ward saying council’s law enforcement agencies will deal with offenders.
“Anyone who wants to operate businesses should be law-abiding.
“To those operating unlicensed businesses and those changing use of their premises without notifying council, the law is at hand. You must approach the local authority first,” he said.
Cllr Charumbira said non-working traffic lights were the reason for some accidents taking place in ward resulting in lives being lost and cars damaged.
“So we are going to ensure that the robots are attended to but due to the issue of power cuts, it will still be a great challenge but we are advocating as a city for solar traffic lights,” he said.
Cllr Charumbira said the city is working on its billing.
“We are working on our internal systems so we move with time, efficiency and transparency,” he said.